Other Brick Wargames Lego Wars Pirate Wars Etcetera

BrikWars is hardly the only PBB wargame on the internet, although it happens to be our personal favorite.  In fact you can find a PBB version of just about any type of wargame or role-playing game if you look hard enough.  Some are excellent, some are awful, but it's not like they're charging admission.

If you know of any PBB wargame sites that aren't on our list but should be, please let us know at [email protected].

Frank Filz keeps a much more comprehensive list of brick-based games and related sites at Frank's LEGO® Games and Wargaming Links Page.  His page contains a wealth of curious and obscure links.  Jason Spangler keeps an additional list at Jason's PBB Games Page.

Frank's LEGO® Games and Wargaming Links

Jason's PBB Games Page

Lego Wars, the Original Brick Wargame

Lego Wars and Lego Wars II, by Eric O'Dell and R. Todd Ogrin, were the first building-brick wargames to hit the Internet in a big way.  This prodigal work inspired any number of variations and unofficial sequels.  The majority of these have fallen by the wayside and been lost over the intervening years, including a few that were quite good.

Eric O'Dell and R. Todd Ogrin Lego Wars and Lego Wars II The original Lego Wars games suffered legal trouble in 1995 due to their unauthorized use of the word LEGO®, which, as you may have guessed, is a registered trademark of The LEGO Group.  It was decided that all copies of the games should be removed from any public venue, and so it may very well be illegal for us to point you to a number of places where they can still be found, along with a few variations. image: detail of R. Todd Ogrin's "SpaceChampion Argor Frant." This character from the "Trooper's Guide to Guns and Stuff" was the first of the Deadly SpaceMen.   copyright (c)1995 R. Todd Ogrin. Sean's Lego Wars Page Lego Wars text on Gurth's page "PBB Wars" on Jason Spangler's page Lego Wars II's "Trooper's Guide to Guns and Stuff" graphic
Lew Therin Telamon Lego Wars III A fellow going by a number of aliases wrote an unofficial sequel to Lego Wars in 1997, adding support for characters and units from Star Wars, Wheel of Time, Dune, and other places, as well as all kinds of other new and original material. Lew Therin Telamon's LegoWar III page
Stephen F. Roberts MiniFig Death and MicroFig Death The Dirt Simple MiniFig Death Wargame is a chopped-out and super-streamlined version of Lego Wars, and is just the thing when the sheer bulk of the BrikWars rulebook starts driving you out of your mind.  MicroFig Death is a similar game designed for even tinier figures. image: a "heavy unit with close combat weapons," a portrait of one of the Units of Death from the MicroFig Death rulebook.   copyright (c)2001 Stephen F. Roberts. MiniFig Death MicroFig Death
Wayne McCaul, Andrew Engstrom, and Aaron Sneary Unofficial BrikWars Supplements Every now and then somebody pops up with an 'unofficial' BrikWars supplement or two; some are worth taking a look at.  Wayne McCaul has posted several on his War of the Briks site, including rules for large-scale games, rules for spellcasting, and new troop and weapon types.  Andrew Engstrom's Defenders of the Alliance Fleet site has a special Colony supplement which brings space exploration and interstellar colonization into the game.  Be sure and check out section 1.6: "Colony News" for a great and original game idea. In addition, Aaron Sneary's got a whole pile of BrikWars scenario ideas on his page on LUGNET™. image: an Alliance Fleet carrier in orbit, one of the last vestiges of the once-proud System Alliance.   copyright (c)2002 Andrew Engstrom Sean and Wayne's Unofficial BrikWars Supplements Andrew Engstrom's Colony supplement Aaron Sneary's BrikWars Scenarios
Justin and D.R. Radford The Ultimate Space LEGO® Combat Sim Fans of USLCS will be glad to hear that it's been resurrected, updated, and re-released to the public.  Visitors to the USLCS site can also check out the in-progress version of the "USLCS: Space Edition" module. Ultimate Space LEGO® Combat Sim home page
Trevor Attridge Blocwars Blocwars is a simplified alternative targeted at the younger wargamer. Blocwars

Pirate Wars

Apparently thanks in large part to the efforts of Steve Jackson, swashbuckling pirate battles have become one of the most popular and visible genres of brick gaming, and no small number of aspiring authors have tried their hand at jumping on that bandwagon.  So much so, in fact, that Frank Filz has given the genre a page to itself at Frank's LEGO® Pirate Gaming Page.

Steve Jackson Evil Stevie's Pirate Game This is the most popular of the pirate games.  If you ever see a brick game getting played at a convention then it will probably be this one.  The Pirate Game is not affiliated with Steve Jackson Games, although strangely, Steve Jackson is, and rather strongly at that. image: the title banner for Evil Stevie's Pirate Game.   copyright (c)2000 Steve Jackson. Evil Stevie's Pirate Game
Mathew Clayson Wooden Ships and Plastic Men This game is a fairly bland take on the piratical genre. Wooden Ships and Plastic Men
Stephen Gabriel Pirate Wars Of all the pirate games, this one is closest in spirit to a piratical Lego Wars.  Pirate Wars is available on Stephen Gabriel's LEGO® Brick Page along with Castle Wars and Space Wars, although these latter two are not nearly so well developed. Pirate Wars

Etcetera

Although Lego Wars knockoffs and pirate games once dominated the brick-gaming stage, a whole pile of newer independent games have sprung up in the meantime.

Peter F. Guenther BrickQuest Here's a nicley-done game from Peter F. Guenther. Done in a boardgame style similar to the likes of HeroQuest, BrickQuest lets an aspiring BrickMaster build a dungeon to lead players through, on a stereotypical fantasy hack-and-slash. image: Cower in fear, it's Elephanthulhu! BrickQuest has a whole host of fantastic creatures a BrickMaster can employ to assault the players.   copyright (c)2003 Peter F. Guenther BrickQuest
Peter F. Guenther BrickMech Another quick and cleanly-written game from Peter F. Guenther, BrickMech lets players slap together some quick mechs for immediate battle. image: A Robotech Excalibur mech prepares to lay down the robosmack.   copyright (c)2003 Peter F. Guenther BrickMech
Joe Brandt and Mik Burns LEGO® Omniverse Lego Omniverse is back from its long absence. Its generic core rules are backed up by genre-specific supplements allowing players to field armies from the realms of fantasy, space, and post-apocalyptic RoadWar 2000. image: Mik Burns' illustrated figures obviously reference Lego archetypes while cleverly avoiding all of the specific features of the minifigure's form patent, a fact which could certainly frustrate the hell out of Lego's legal team. Using the Lego copyright in the game title, however...   copyright (c)2000 Joe Brandt and Mik Burns Lego® Omniverse
James Brown Brick Battles Once just another in the line of unrelated games sharing the name of Lego Wars, this game was rechristened "Brick Battles" when James Brown got tired of competing with the other games of the same name but older pedigree. Brick Battles is championed by many players who find other Lego Wars games too complex and time-consuming. James Brown's Lego Wars
Trevor L. Seabrook PlasticHammer PlasticHammer is back up, but only the "Quick-Start" version - which is fine in itself, even though it spends about twice as much space writing about how much better the "full game" is than it does on its own actual rules. Hopefully the full game gets put back up someday as well. PlasticHammer
The Reverend Brendan Powell Smith The Ultimate LEGO® Vehicle Contest All right, so technically it's not a wargame (except possibly for the competition's last event).  It's still cool.  Notorious Internet celebrity The Reverend Brendan Powell Smith has documented the hilarity and destruction of his annual The Ultimate LEGO® Vehicle Contest. image: the horrifying J-VEQ can barely restrain the urge to eat his vehicle.   copyright (c)2001 Brendan Powell Smith. The Ultimate LEGO® Vehicle Contest
Kat Studios BATTLE! BATTLE! is a quick and straightforward system for brick-based medieval battles, by the guys behind Illusionary Craft. image: Illusionary Craft's Excalibur crest.   copyright (c)2006 Kat Studios. BATTLE! Illusionary Craft
Jeff Volmer LEGO® Fantasy Battle This game is designed for use at gaming conventions with a dedicated moderator.  Of all the games listed here, this is the one that most resembles AD&D.  It even has plastic-brick spell lists. Sadly, LFB is doomed by its unfortunate choice of initials never to gain name-recognition among the LEGO® faithful, to whom LFB will always stand for Lindsay Frederick Braun. LEGO® Fantasy Battle Jeff V's Miscellaneous Gaming Page
Chris Barger and Patrick Franklin The LEGO® Fantasy Wargame This game is probably the most statistic-intensive brick wargame on the Net.  The game is well-developed but requires a high tolerance for pre-game accounting. The LEGO® Fantasy Wargame
Kristian Miller The LEGO® Fantasy Role-Playing Game Rounding out the list of all possible names for brick wargames starting with "Lego Fantasy," LFRPG is actually a very quick and solid system that does something I've wanted to see for a long time: let players role-play minifigs as honest-to-god minifigs instead of as strangely-shaped humans. The LEGO® Fantasy Role-Playing Game
Paul Gyugyi Renegade Bricks Based on the old Renegade Legion games, Renegade Bricks allows dogfights between PBB spaceships.  Paul has also created the Dark Sun campaign setting for the game. image: two daring Gnutron renegades fight to overthrow TOG oppression.   copyright (c)1997 Paul Gyugyi. Renegade Bricks
David Goeb Yet Another LEGO® Universe Game System YALUGS is available as a series of jpegs in David Goeb's BrickShelf gallery.  The rulebook is short but more attractive than most. image: Major Bluetile at the Battle of Yellow Valley.   copyright (c)2000 David Goeb. Yet Another LEGO® Universe Game System
Andrew Engstrom and Dan Mattia Starship RPG This play-by-email brick RPG started by Andrew Engstrom and Dan Mattia has evolved into an internet monstrosity spanning a wide variety of sectors, worlds, game masters, and playing styles. image: the mysterious planet Spraw.   copyright (c)2002 Andrew Engstrom and Dan Mattia. Starship RPG home page Starship RPG message board on LUGNET
Vincent Baker of Lumpley Games MechaTon This is an awesome, simple, and quick microfig-scale mech-combat game by Vincent Baker of Lumpley Games.  Vincent is the same genius that invented the game "kill puppies for satan," a milestone in the development of gaming atrocities. image: a microfig mech is ready for action.   copyright (c)2002 Vincent Baker of Lumpley Games MechaTon Lumpley Games kill puppies for satan
Matt Hein DraKen Matt Hein is developing some kind of castle-based role-playing / wargaming hybrid. image: the DraKen logo.   copyright (c)2002 Matt Hein. DraKen

Zac Soden Fleet Command 3.0 Fleet Command is a brick spacefleet combat game set in Zac Soden's Battlespace universe.  Unlike most of the brick games on the web, Fleet Command seems to be set up to try and make a profit somehow.  Can it be done?  We'll have to wait and see. image: an Annihilator-class Warcruiser patrols an asteroid field.   copyright (c)2002 Zac Soden. Battlespace home page